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Daughter's Memories

Chapter 6 ROSHAN – OUR FAMILY REVOLUTIONARY

We were living in a newly constructed
rented house in Kucha Soodan (the street of the Soods) where we had
shifted not too long ago from Kucha Berian (the streets of the
Beris). The move had been necessary as we had to sell our own house
after financial losses incurred by my father. As the new house was
only on a neighbouring street, I remember carrying some of our
belongings in my two hands to the new house. We, children loved the
rented house as it was newly constructed and had very colourful
cemented floors especially its front porch painted in bright red
colour. Though the house was smaller than our old one, I could not
understand why my mother cried like a child when she left her old
house. It was only after I grew up that I could appreciate my
mother’s agony. She had spent over twenty years as the proud owner
of the house in the other street and was now having to move to a
rented house. We were no longer house owners!

Without knowing the meaning of the
word 'Inquilab' (Long Live Revolution), I used to lead a group of
children (all under ten) shouting 'Inquilab'. We did it because all
the male adults in Lahore were doing the same in public places, on
the streets or from their house tops. Shouting such slogans was the
‘in’ thing those days. We thought that 'Inquilab' must be great
thing as everybody was seeking it. I also wrote 'Inquilab Zindabad'
with a chalk on all the walls of my house and on the walls of the
street – to the dismay of my mother and father. I was possessed by
'Inquilab' so that even when alone, I used to shout 'Inquilab
Zindabad' to the annoyance of my brothers.

I started to have some understanding
of the concept when in early 1930s, our house was once raided by 50
odd sturdy Punjab Policemen. They surrounded our little house from
all directions – stood guard at the exit points of the street where
we lived. The policemen were looking for my brother Roshan. I always
admired this khadi-clad unemployed graduate brother of mine for his
loving disposition towards me and his excellent physique.

My brother was usually not at home
with the good excuse that he was looking for a job. A BA from the
elite Forman Christian College of Lahore, he was a very busy member
of our family. Unlike other members of the family, Roshan was always
immaculately dressed in white khadi churidar and a kurta. In the
evening when he went to the playground, he was dressed in khaki half-
pants and a shirt and with a hockey stick hung on the back of his
bicycle. He had many friends who wore khadi and came visiting
frequently though they always seemed to be in a hurry.

My father was out of the house from
morning till night at his little shop. They usually did not meet each
other and whenever they faced each other, my father's only question
was, “Any success on job front? Have you applied?” Roshan was
invariably calm and composed in his reply. My father got the answer
and went his way. Unemployment was a major problem in India in the
thirties with the world-wide depression. India had hardly any
domestic industry which could make use of the educated unemployed.
Their only avenue was to get a job with the government and these
openings were scarce, especially for khadi-clad people who were
expected to be against the British Raj. Khadi symbolised anti-
British attitude of the wearer.

A police raid at the Seth residence
was unheard of. We were supposed to be decent, law – abiding
citizens. All the families around the area started gathering around
and near our house. The neighbours called others also who might be
interested in watching the fun. My mother did what she was best at.
She cried. I had never seen police in such large numbers and quietly
ran out to mingle with the onlookers in the street. The neighbours
pondered over every possible crime, (dacoity, murder, theft) which
the young Seths may have committed. No one suspected that one of the
Seth children could be a revolutionary!

After about one hour, the crowd began
to get nearer to the truth. Police had suspected that some dangerous
revolutionaries were meeting at Roshan's residence and they expected
to catch them. As I moved from one group to the other group, I heard
several versions of the purpose of this revolutionary meeting in our
house. Overall, I was impressed by the role my brother was playing in
the freedom movement but the story which appealed to me most was that
Roshan was conspiring to kill the British Officers in India!

The Punjab police were not known for
their civil behaviour. I remember my brother asking them to produce a
search warrant. They had brought a magistrate along to oversee the
search. My brother let them search all corners of the three-storey
house while chatting with the Magistrate in English (much to my
surprise and pride). The search continued for over an hour. They
opened our suitcases and threw all the clothes on the floor. They
opened the utensils and jars where we stored our lentils or wheat
flour. They ordered my mother to sit in one corner and not to
interfere in anything. Almirahs, cupboards, wall-hangings, storage
and garbage bins were also ransacked but nothing was found.

Amongst the romantic novels my
brother read, they found no pamphlet on Karl Marx or Lenin or any
other revolutionary literature. They could not charge him for
sedition and take him to the Police Station to question which was the
way they normally dealt with other young people. Besides, my brother
had established a friendly rapport with the Indian Magistrate who
turned out to be another old boy from the Forman Christian College.
It seemed to have helped him. My father was absent. My brother was
questioned at length but the police obviously found nothing to charge
him with. No 'revolutionary' group was discovered or caught in the
house. It was a normal middle class house. Only a few new chairs and
an office table in Roshan’s ground floor room indicated western
influence. Before leaving, the Magistrate shook hands with my
brother. The onlookers and spectators were highly impressed and
Roshan's status among our fellow citizens was up!

It was now the turn of the assembled
crowd to approach my brother, making friendly and sympathetic noises.
To make him happy they even abused the Punjab police for their
ruthlessness and cruelty. He gave them a polite reply with a smile on
his face and told them the police had come to a wrong address. He was
not the Roshan they were looking for. He told them that he was no
revolutionary nor did he have revolutionary connections. He was an
honest Congressman who followed Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent path.
The crowd was a little disappointed and melted away.

In the evening when the family sat
down for dinner, we discovered that Roshan did have some connections
with revolutionaries. He dug out from one of the walls two imported
pistols with a supply of cartridges and showed them to us. He
revealed that these pistols were concealed in the house two days back
by his friends. He did not tell us which revolutionary group he
belonged to, but apparently, he was at the core of a group who
trusted him and considered his house safe. Next morning, the pistols
were out of the house. The police, it seemed, had the correct
information. Some revolutionaries had been meeting Roshan. However,
they did not find any evidence. The pistols were in a very well
camouflaged corner. That saved my brother.

Just a few months before this
incident, Bhagat Singh and two of his colleagues Rajguru and Sukhdeva
were hanged and cremated on the banks of the Beas River. The news
about their cremation came at midnight and I recall most adult
members of our family left home to join the protest demonstrations in
the streets of Lahore. People were wailing, cursing the British
Government and raised slogans like ‘Long Live Bhagat Singh’. The
protests continued for a few days, but the children chanted the
Bhagat Singh slogans for years. Bhagat Singh became the symbol the
Indian freedom and the revolutionary movement in Punjab. I, too, was
painting the house and the street with the new slogans in Urdu in the
memory of Bhagat Singh – we called him - Shaheed-e-Aazam – the
great martyr.

To get him away from his
revolutionary activities, my father took Roshan to a village, 40 kms
from Lahore. In this village, my father had leased a water mill where
wheat flour was manufactured. The grinding wheels of the Mill were
powered by the electricity generated by water in the canal that
flowed by. Scores of farmers would come to the Mill every day to get
their wheat ground or to sell their wheat to my father. Roshan
started spreading his message of freedom among the farmers too. This
really worried my father as his Mill was leased from the government
and the lease could easily be revoked. He decided to take Roshan back
to Lahore.

I recall going with Roshan for a walk
in the village. I was walking behind him. He asked me why I was
walking behind him. I told him that our teacher had told us to follow
our elders. He laughed and pulled me up to him and said, “You walk
with me straight with your head high. Children of free India must
walk with their heads high and erect and never bend before anyone in
authority. I followed his advice literally and in Lahore, while going
to school, I would walk with my head up and eyes straight. One day, I
stumbled on a stone and fell down on my head.

Another interesting aspect of my
brother came to our notice during a Satyagrah movement in the early
thirties. Groups of volunteers used to court arrest daily in Lahore.
For this purpose, an organisation was needed and we came to know that
brother Roshan was the organising spirit behind that. At a given
time, some Congressmen would gather to move forward in a procession
shouting anti-British slogans. Slogans became louder with every move
forward. Roshan led the group as well as the sloganeers. He would
start the procession with the flag in hand and continue marching
forward. Enthusiastic volunteers tried to snatch the flag from Roshan
but he would not yield till they reached the place where police
usually made arrests. And, he would vanish handing over the national
flag to someone else who was keen to grab it. Although it was a daily
affair, my brother was never arrested and he was always there next
day to lead the Satyagrah. He shouted the loudest.

One day, I asked him why he evaded
arrest while others went to jail. My brother smiled and told me that
someone has to prepare volunteers to court arrest everyday. I and
some of my co-workers do that job. I have to lead the procession and
set the tone and pace. During the excitement fired by patriotic
slogans, others join in the group and take the lead. And, at the
right moment, I let them lead the batch to court arrest. I go back to
prepare the next batch of Satyagrahis at the Congress office.
Otherwise, the movement may sag, he asserted.

Three decades after independence, the
Government of India decided to honour freedom fighters with
Tamrapatras (certificates). Roshan refused to attend the meeting
where they were to be honoured on the ground that he did not
participate in the freedom movement to claim recognition or an award.
However, The Deputy Commissioner of Jallundhar city where Roshan then
lived came to his newspaper office and left the Tamrapatra on his
table while he was away . Later, the freedom fighters were allowed
pensions and free rail travel. Roshan never put in a claim. He never
mentioned these honours to me. I came to know about this long after
his death from one of my friends in Jallundhur.

Brother Roshan was a revolutionary
and Satyagrahi, no doubt. but he had a romantic side to his
personality. He was a well-built, handsome young man and girls could
seldom miss his charm. At times, my brother was visited by some smart
looking young college girls, most of them dressed in khadi. Girls
coming to visit Roshan used to be hot news for the neighbours.
Neighbouring women were immediately in their windows to look at his
female visitors. These girls too, were Congress workers and students
and belonged to families actively involved in the Congress movement.
He seemed to be closer to one girl who was very happy to see him and
came more often to visit him. She did not live very far from our
house. However, every grown-up female, whether from outside or from
the neighbourhood, called him 'Bhaji' (Brother). It was the most
convenient and safe way of romancing those days.

Apparently, my brother did not like
one particular girl. He was just fond of every young female around.
To my surprise one day, I discovered my brother exchanging gestures
with a young widow in the neighbourhood. Her response was even
warmer. She constantly smiled at him. Later, I overheard my mother
saying that she suspected the widow had designs on her son and called
her a 'bitch'. The romance did not go far because my mother became
overly alert!

Well before the partition, Roshan was
married to a 'highly educated' Matriculate girl. Besides
Matriculation, she had a Hindi Bhushan degree from Punjab University.
She was recommended to my brother by Lala Jagat Narain who was an
active Congressman and his political mentor and a close relation of
his wife-to-be. (Lala Jagat Narain later found 'Hind Samachar' group
of newspapers and became the first Minister of Education in the new
East Punjab Government. ) She was Lala Jagat Narain's niece and the
daughter of a government official.

I vividly remember going by an
overnight train to Multan with the wedding party. The most exciting
part of the wedding for me, as a young student, was the 300 kilometre
journey by train from Lahore to Multan- now in Pakistan.. The
'Baraat' party was made up of 75 relatives and friends. Booking of a
railway coach for the marriage party was not easy. The expertise of a
distant cousin from the Ministry of Railways was sought. For many of
us, it was our first ever train journey in life.

. We all had a great vacation with
the bride's side providing us accommodation, food and total
hospitality for four days. We were formally called for all three
meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served lavishly by the
relatives of the bride. Tea was ever available on the house. During
the four days, there was constant banter among the guests, games of
cards as well as occasional quarrels! Marriage parties lasting four
days, today, sound unreal. However, I attended at least three of them
on the other side of the divide. All of them as a child on leave from
school.

After his marriage, my revolutionary
brother settled down as an ideal husband and father.– raising a
family on the paltry salary of a bank clerk. He had five children –
one of them has become a well- known Hindi writer. The other is the
Managing Editor of a major Hindi daily – and one of his daughters
is a leading publisher.